


We Can Make This Last Forever

by FrazzledSquidz



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Domesticity, Fluff, Immortal Husbands, M/M, Short & Sweet, Sleepy Cuddles, maybe canon-divergent?, set right after the movie, who knows - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:33:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25639564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrazzledSquidz/pseuds/FrazzledSquidz
Summary: Between one heartbeat and the next Nicky tenses awake and, upon feeling the gun under his pillow and Joe’s arm around his chest, relaxes. A quick survey of their studio apartment, dimly lit in the pre-dawn, shows him nothing out of the ordinary and the lingering ache in his chest assures him that it was just a dream that woke him. It was nothing physical, nothing real.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 9
Kudos: 282





	We Can Make This Last Forever

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Last Forever by Fenech-Soler.

Between one heartbeat and the next Nicky tenses awake and, upon feeling the gun under his pillow and Joe’s arm around his chest, relaxes. A quick survey of their studio apartment, dimly lit in the pre-dawn, shows him nothing out of the ordinary and the lingering ache in his chest assures him that it was just a dream that woke him. It was nothing physical, nothing real. 

He shifts carefully onto his back within Joe’s embrace. His partner stays deeply asleep but automatically adjusts to Nicky’s movements, giving him room while still keeping him close. Nicky studies Joe’s lax face as he brings his own hands up, fingertips brushing against the forearm resting across his ribs, an extra layer of protection for his immortal-adjacent heart. Joe’s jaw is uncharacteristically relaxed, mouth hanging slightly open, and his eyes dart beneath his eyelids as he chases his own dreams. 

Joe likes to wax poetic about Nicky’s kindness. (Read: Joe likes to wax poetic about Nicky.) (Also: Joe likes to wax poetic.) But he’s the passionate one. Where Nicky quietly offers support, backup, ethical reminders to their team, Joe is the one loudly, and often violently, fighting injustice as he sees it. 

In handcuffs and surrounded by armed and shielded guards, he still verbally fights back against those who would belittle his relationship. In the wake of Booker’s betrayal he denounces their teammate while still tied down to a table with no rescue in sight. A soldier shoots Nicky, so Joe finds the culprit and makes sure to beat the hell out of him for a minute before finally brutally killing him. 

As the centuries have passed Nicky has become calmer, but Joe has just grown brasher and more impatient. They had spent so many years viciously hating each other, hunting and killing and wondering why their respective Gods wouldn’t just let them die already. Over time that hate became a reluctant truce as their world carried on without them, then a tentative partnership once Andy and Quynh finally found them and broadened their perspectives, and then, slowly, affection as they fought beside and protected and killed for each other. 

Watching Andy’s despair over their inability to find Quynh at the bottom of the ocean was what finally, inexorably, drew them together. Nicky still dreams about her sometimes, aching deep within his heart for her purgatorial suffering and Andy’s relentless, endless guilt. He knows Joe feels the same. He’s the other half of his soul, of course he knows how Joe feels. 

“ _What are you thinking about over there?_ ” comes a quiet Italian mumble, and Nicky turns his head to meet Joe’s sleepy squint. Their noses are almost touching and he goes a little cross-eyed to keep his partner in focus.

“ _Us_ ,” he responds in the same tongue. They tend to lapse into Italian when together, perhaps because it was the first language they shared, their first steps towards understanding each other. “ _Remember when we hated each other?_ ”

Joe’s eyes close as he grins, seemingly delighted by the question. “ _From the start, Nicolo, I was so obsessed with you._ ” 

Nicky can’t help but smile back, achingly fond. “ _And I, you._ ” He shifts closer still, enough to rest their foreheads together, and lets his own eyes close. 

Joe settles and their breathing automatically syncs. It’s been a week and a dozen countries since killing Merrick and leaving Booker behind. They had finally stopped in southern Argentina, Andy reluctantly feeling secure enough to let them separate (though within the confines of the same time zone) until Copley gave them a call. Her and Nile took off while Joe and Nicky promptly found a small Airbnb apartment and booked it out for half a year. It is most likely more time than they will get together, but Nicky is ever optimistic. 

Their recent capture still lingers in their minds, however. Both men still sleep fully clothed and have emergency packs conveniently stashed by the door and two of the windows. Nicky knows that they are as safe as they can be for now, but he’s still on-edge. He hadn’t been lying to Merrick’s doctor when he’d said they had heard the justifications for their imprisonment and torture countless times. They had been alive for centuries; of course they’d been captured before. But as technology advanced and people’s connections grew and the world became increasingly sicker their hunters became even more clever, more vicious, and more desperate. More willing to sacrifice the few for the many, especially if those ‘few’ were unknown aberrations. 

“ _Don’t think about it,_ ” Joe mumbles at his side, breaking his train of thought.

Nicky sighs, realizing that his heart rate had picked up. “ _It’s hard not to,_ ” he confesses quietly, pressing his forehead a little harder into Joe’s to help ground himself. “ _If Nile hadn’t come along we would have been in real trouble._ ” 

He feels Joe tense horribly and knows he’s thinking about Booker’s betrayal. Nicky is trying his hardest not to reflect on it, not yet. Because of course he can understand where his friend was coming from but it still hurts like hell that he would go so far. That he would give them all up, especially Andy, in the hopes that they would find a way to end his life for good. 

“ _Everything happens for a reason,_ ” Nicky reminds Joe in a whisper, the words lingering in the scant space between their lips. 

He sighs deeply, his breath fanning out across Nicky’s face and muscles relaxing as he does so. “ _You are right. As always._ ” 

Outside their window Nicky can hear the sounds of a city waking up: steadily increasing motor traffic, vendors preparing their stores for the day, animals wild and domestic crying out in their ancient languages, people as they prepare themselves and their loved ones to do it all over again. 

“ _Go back to sleep, my love,_ ” Nicky whispers, feeling himself start to slip back under within the safety of his partner’s arms, their anonymity, and their experience at handling whatever the world throws at them. 

“ _You first,_ ” Joe mumbles even as his breath deepens, even as they both fall into a dreamless rest.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not even trying to fuck with Google translate.


End file.
